Kimisloved.net // Living Loved

Excerpt from article written by Dan Haseltine:

In the Spirit

http://www.christianmusicplanet.com/magazine/viewarticle.asp?id=370

In Isaiah, God teaches people about worship. Man makes an account of the ways he serves God: burnt offerings, rituals, liturgies that almost entirely take place isolated from others. God tells His people that the new worship is through the care and stewardship of the suffering and the oppressed. He tells us that taking care of widows and orphans, loosening the grip of injustice, clothing the naked and healing the sick are the worship.

It is a cycle of worship. We worship by serving others. By serving others, we realize that we do not have the ability to serve with our whole hearts. This drives us to the cross. At the cross, we come face-to-face with the God that knows how to lay His life down. We are provoked and inspired to worship. This great cycle of worship is our privilege!

This is why we must serve others. It is in and through relationships that we will reach our end and our greater understanding of redemption. Understanding redemption draws us to want to be part of the acts of God. What a joy! What a gift!

May you be blessed by inconvenience and surprised by love.

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“Conviction, Conviction!  Right here people: Conviction!”

I love this…I love the definition of worship here!  It makes perfect sense to me…it makes so much sense that I’m kinda beating myself up today by not realizing, and so acting on this realization. Why am I so afraid to “take care of widows and orphans, loosen the grip of injustice, clothe the naked and heal the sick”? Why, even after helping with the toy distribution and being so blessed, do I still sit and let the travesties of the world occur?  It is so freakin easy to help… and I’m not alone in this.  I’m so excited by and focused on the prospects of what my ministry will do for the future of Ybor City, that I have brushed aside the needs of those around me right now!  And not just spiritual needs…but practical needs.  I’m blown away by those I have the pleasure of knowing that do help tangibly, and get to dive into someone’s life by helping with groceries, lunch, clothes, getting someone a job, sitting down and talking to them, relating on levels that meet their needs.  I thank God for examples like my mom, Luke, Jordan, Jennifer, Kara, Lee…and countless others.  Some get to do this as their job, some do it cause its their nature.  They’ll even take of their own time and money just to make sure a person is taken care of!  Man…so selfless…and you may not even realize you do it.  But you do! I thank you for that example!

I want to be a person that automatically helps a homeless person I walk by.  I want to be that person that sees someone is obviously upset, and takes it upon themselves to deliberately see how they are and PRAY WITH THEM RIGHT THEN!

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this:  He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Psalm 37:3-6